Thanks to Joy Zhang and Geoff Payne for contributing some fascinating and original thinking to our cluster meeting on Weds 13th November.

Geoff came to talk about his recent chapter in Panayotova, P. (ed) (2019) The History of Sociology in Britain, focusing on how the former polytechnics (current ‘post-92’ institutions) are too often written out of disciplinary histories. The question of who gets to tell the story fo sociology, from what social and institutional positions, remains very relevant and we really enjoyed Geoff’s original approach to this question.

We were also delighted to be joined by Joy Zhang (Kent) who was in Newcastle to give a fantastic seminar later in the day:‘From democratising to decolonising science: Lessons from China’s contemporary life science controversies.’ In our cluster session Joy shared some thoughts about the very different history and present position of Sociology in China as well as connecting this up to her own trajectory and work.